The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication evolved from the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication and succeeds what was formerly known as the Center for Global Communication Studies.

camra is hosting a round table discussion on media, race and the Oscars controversy at the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) on Feb. 10th, 5-6.30 pm. Panelists include John Jackson, Dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice, Maori Holmes, Director of BlackStar Film Festival, and Khadijah White, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University. The discussion is organized in partnership with the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School, the Cinema Studies department and the School of Social Policy and Practice.

Please join us to welcome the Spring 2016 CGCS visiting scholars to the Annenberg community and engage in an informal discussion. The scholars will be presenting their research interests, areas for potential collaborations, and pertinent media policy issues relevant to their regions and areas of expertise. Lunch will be served.

The 2016 Milton Wolf Seminar uses the November 2015 Paris Attacks as an entry point into discussions about journalism, diplomacy, and information controls. Many have noted asymmetries in global media responses to the events in Paris and ISIS attacks in Beirut (November 12, 2015), Baghdad (November 13, 2015) and Boko Haram in Nigeria (November 17 & 18, 2015). Discussions about these asymmetries will take center stage at Milton Wolf 2016. Panelists will explore the role of actors across the geopolitical spectrum, from Western powers, to non state terrorist networks, to Iran, to Russia, to China. They will also discuss how recent events have opened up new geopolitical possibilities. For example, Iran, long a Western antagonist, has surfaced as a necessary ally against ISIS and Russia is collaborating with France in intelligence gathering related to terrorist activities. Discussions will consider the implications of a range of new and old media, individuals, and institutions in undermining and or reinforcing these trends.

As the Director of Grassroots Advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Shahid Buttar has been at the forefront of privacy activism in the post-Snowden world. Buttar will discuss the recent controversy over encryption regarding Apple’s dispute with the FBI, the impending debate in Congress over mass surveillance, the effects of state and police surveillance on activists and communities of color. He will also introduce students and researchers to the most important online privacy tools. A workshop will follow the lecture.

Covering a range of issues from media policy to celebrity activism, visiting scholar Hilde Van den Bulck will evaluate the role of actors and stakeholders in pushing particular narratives to influence outcomes. Using the case study of public service broadcasting in Belgium, Hilde will focus on how buzzwords dominate policy debates and how stakeholders pushing media policy agendas can be understood from an Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) perspective.

This informal lunch discussion explores the notion of “digital constitutionalism”, a term which attempts to encompass the many proposals and documents put forward by a variety of actors to give form and legality to the ever-changing concept of “digital rights”. It will discuss the profoundly political and symbolic dimensions of the legislative efforts put in place by democratic states in this domain, focusing in particular on the Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet and the Italian Declaration of Internet Rights.

Throughout the last decade, Monroe Price, the founding Director of Annenberg’s Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS), has served as Annenberg’s ambassador in scholarly and policy-making communities around the world, enhancing and enriching the field of international communications studies and policy analysis. To celebrate these accomplishments, a panel event on April 26, 2016 will honor Professor Price’s contributions to the field of global communication studies at the helm of CGCS. Panelists Stefaan Verhulst, Krisztina Rozgonyi, Amelia Arsenault, Christian Sandvig, and Julia Sonnevend will discuss Monroe’s impact on research and scholarship at Penn and beyond.

The 18th annual Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute, will be held at the University of Oxford from Monday, June 27 to Friday, July 8, 2016. At this year’s institute, participants will explore themes such as strategic narratives and propaganda, the role of the media in political change and conflict, global internet governance processes, online censorship and surveillance, and the relationship between international media laws and national jurisdictions.

Given the surprising 2013 victory of President Hassan Rouhani, the 2015 nuclear deal, and the centrist upset in the 2016 parliamentary elections, social research on Iran is arguably in need of reassessment and renovation. The Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the University of California-Los Angeles’ Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Central European University’s School of Public Policy are pleased to announce the upcoming conference Surveying Iran: The Future of Social Research after the Nuclear Thaw. The conference is currently seeking presentations on topics such as: In-depth analysis of previously under-studied institutions; innovative use of existing and under-utilized data sets from official sources; and the production of new data sets on Iran from surveys, data scraping, or other collection methods.

To help bridge the gap across disciplines and open opportunities for interdisciplinary research, this event, organized by GIGANET and the Internet Policy Observatory at the University of Pennsylvania, will bring together computer scientists and social, political and/or legal scholars who have been conducting research on issues such as censorship, net neutrality, privacy and surveillance to discuss methodological issues as well best practices for collaboration between scholars from a variety of disciplines.